An excellent (if typically long-winded) article on the rather disgusting displays of hypocrisy and narcissism in response to the recent murders in Connecticut. Let’s not forget that the very same people who today are claiming to be oh-so-upset about a couple dozen murders were, just over a month ago, actively and enthusiastically endorsing the mass slaughter of many hundreds of times as many people by the vile, monstrous tyrant who rules in Mordor on the Potomac (and this includes the people who voted for his phony “opponent,” who made it clear that he would do the same things).

It’s definitely appropriate, given the blatant hypocrisy of the Evil Empire, to appoint some guy who used to be Osama bin Laden for white people to this position. After all, this is the same country that conquered Iraq using terrorism as a pretext, and then appointed a terrorist as puppet ruler.

Naturally I don’t spend much time in government buildings, but I know that both prisons public schools and courthouses have drinking fountains. I don’t think there’s any beverage on Earth that’s killed more people than water…

For both parties: I know what you’re thinking. “Are the American people really so stupid and blinded by partisanship that they won’t realize we were making precisely the opposite arguments just four years ago?” The answer is: Yes! Yes they are!

The ultimate reaping of what one sows: right-wing edition. Right-wing polemicists today are shrieking in self-pitying protest over a new report from the Department of Homeland Security sent to local police forces which warns of growing “right-wing extremist activity.” The report (.pdf) identifies attributes of these right-wing extremists, warning that a growing domestic threat of violence and terrorism “may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration” and “groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.”

[…]

But the political faction screeching about the dangers of the DHS is the same one that spent the last eight years vastly expanding the domestic Surveillance State and federal police powers in every area. DHS — and the still-creepy phrase “homeland security” — became George Bush’s calling card. The Republicans won the 2002 election by demonizing those who opposed its creation. All of the enabling legislation underlying this Surveillance State — from the Patriot Act to the Military Commissions Act, from the various FISA “reforms” to massive increases in domestic “counter-Terrorism” programs — are the spawns of the very right-wing movement that today is petrified that this is all being directed at them.

When you cheer on a Surveillance State, you have no grounds to complain when it turns its eyes on you. If you create a massive and wildly empowered domestic surveillance apparatus, it’s going to monitor and investigate domestic political activity. That’s its nature. [Glenn Greenwald]

Rwanda expels German ambassador. Rose Kabuye, the director- general of state protocol in Rwanda, was detained at Frankfurt airport on Sunday, a move that Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, has called a “violation of sovereignty”.

Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwanda’s information minister, said: “The Rwandan government told the German ambassador to leave within 48 hours until the arrest of Kabuye is resolved.

“The ambassador should leave the country by Thursday,” she said.

Kabuye was arrested on an international warrant issued by France in 2006 for her and eight other associates of Kagame.

She is accused of involvement in the shooting down of an aeroplane carrying Juvenal Habyarimana, the Rwandan president, in 1994. His death was one of the sparks that ignited a campaign of genocide in the central African nation, German prosecutors have said. [Al Jazeera]

I note that Bush has been to both Germany and France without being arrested, and there’s no question that he’s guilty of far worse crimes than what Ms. Kabuye is accused of. I don’t particularly approve of countries imposing their own laws on foreigners for things that happened in foreign countries (a practice the Evil Empire is fond of), but the double standard here is even more offensive.